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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25620367">Break of Dawn</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonessryu/pseuds/demonessryu'>demonessryu</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Feelings Realization, Islamic References, Joe is my projector screen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Sharing a Bed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:55:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,118</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25620367</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonessryu/pseuds/demonessryu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>At the break of dawn, Yusuf sought and found the beloved.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>265</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Break of Dawn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fandom needs Islamic perspective and I’m willing to bite the bullet since I already have an express ticket to hell anyway. I’m only semi-practicing at best so, uh, here’s something with my best understanding of my faith and quite a liberal dose of projection.</p><p>Special thanks to lunatic-jellybear on tumblr for helping me with Nicky's side of things.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yusuf woke up at the break of dawn with a loud exhale. There was no prayer call to alert him of the time – there hadn’t been any for a while now as he travelled through lands abandoned to war – but deeply ingrained habit woke up him up nevertheless. He yawned and stretched, chasing away the last of the lingering dreams of swords and blood, crescent and cross, and life ending pain and life giving gasps.</p><p>A sleepy grunt reminded Yusuf of his bedfellow. He blinked at the vague silhouette of his former enemy. Nicolo, the man had said his name was while putting his hand on his broad chest. That had been weeks ago and they had come a long way since watching each other in wary suspicion. They were still overcoming language barrier, Yusuf’s grasp of Italian tenuous and Nicolo’s understanding of Arabic essentially non-existent. They were still learning to communicate basic things: eat, drink, rest, hide, fight (“Wake up! Wake up!” “I don’t know what you’re saying.”) and so on. Nevertheless, there was a connection they couldn’t deny, brought about by the strange existence they shared with no other, dying and living and dying and living and dying and living over and over and over again until both of them lost sight of death and life and existed without aim.</p><p>As if sensing Yusuf’s increasingly perturbed thoughts, Nicolo grunted in his sleep and shifted restlessly until Yusuf put a heavy hand on his broad back. Then, he slackened, melting back into his dreams. Nicolo would wake up soon for his own morning prayer, but Yusuf liked to keep him asleep for as long as possible, liked to see his calmness and unwariness even as everything around them made less and less sense. Nicolo was far from Yusuf’s first male bedfellow, but he was different from all the others before him. To be fair, no one else had visited Yusuf’s dreams so persistently or killed Yusuf repeatedly or be killed by Yusuf as often and desperately. None of them had come back to life, either, hunting and haunting Yusuf until they were both weary and their bloody weapons and armors were too heavy and they had to cling to each other to remain standing. None of them had made Yusuf cast his whole life aside and turned his back to everything he had. None of them had made Yusuf questioned everything he knew and wondered about his painstakingly-ingrained core values.</p><p>Yusuf sat up and stared into the darkness of the abandoned house. Lifelong habit demanded him to get up and pray. He had followed it for as long as he could remember, but lately he took his time. Lately he wondered. Lately, he looked at Nicolo and thought about the ruined armors they had left behind a few lifetimes ago and questioned everything he had been taught and believed. There had been no Izrail claiming Yusuf in his numerous death, no Munkar and Nakir questioning him, and he hadn’t been resurrected by Isa (which was a little disappointing as Yusuf thought Nicolo would love to see the man he worshipped.) There had only been a blank stretch of time between another death and a new life. Death was nothing like what Yusuf had been told, just like Nicolo was nothing like what Yusuf had been made to believe about his people. Yusuf had been convinced they were violent, selfish, uncivilized, and not to be trusted. He’d never been told about gentle hands that frantically tended to Yusuf’s too-quickly healing wounds, kind smiles that accompanied offers for Nicolo’s own limited share of water and food, awestruck wide-eyed stares when Yusuf sang to the moon and stars, and strong body that shielded him and blood that spilled to defend him from the sharp edge of humanity. Yusuf had gone to war prepared for death and ready to make enemies. Instead, he now found himself kept returning back to life beside the man he was supposed to hate but now couldn’t imagine be without.</p><p>Perhaps this – the repeated stabbing pain, slashing injuries, dying gasps, clawing agony of life slipping away – was divine punishment. Yusuf hadn’t always followed the righteous path, had sometimes deliberately ignored what should be done, had sometimes chosen pleasure over obligations. There were more than enough reasons to punish him not only with repeated deaths, but also with repeated lives. Or maybe Yusuf had been forsaken, maybe he had fallen out of divine favor, maybe even God had given up for him that even his death wasn’t wanted.</p><p>There was deep fear that accompanied the thought of being left by God, loneliness colder than the deepest nights in the desert and sharper than the edge of steel swords at the thought that he’d been abandoned. Surely not. God never abandoned the faithful. However, Yusuf’s faith was wavering, weakened by the nothingness that greeted him on the other side of life and the piling evidence that perhaps the lessons he’d been taught hadn’t been entirely right. Nicolo still prayed. Yusuf watched him sometimes, head bent over strong hands put together as he knelt before a small cross he had taken with him even after leaving behind his heavy armors. It was one of the few items he still kept, along with his sword. Yusuf wished he could ask Nicolo whether he still fully believed in his faith, but Yusuf’s limited Italian prevented such complex conversation. They hadn’t even been able to talk about why they wouldn’t stay dead or the nightmares they seemed to share, and those were even more pressing issues than a theological discussion. There was no one to answer Yusuf’s questions and accompany him in his growing uncertainty, and the silence festered worse and more painfully than any fatal injury.</p><p>Eventually, the internal call, slightly hollow though it now was, became impossible to ignore. Yusuf slowly left the thin bed he and Nicolo shared. As water was scarce, he cleansed himself with dust from the floor. Then, he unrolled a prayer mat he had found in the house. Facing the <em>qibla</em>, Yusuf tried to submerge himself in the familiar act of praying, although his mind kept wandering to the family and friends he had left behind, the memories of countless deaths, the exhaustion of innumerable revivals, the man Yusuf should but couldn’t hate. The repetition of words and motions he had said and performed millions of times before did provide him some calmness, but didn’t fully extinguish the burning questions within him, the calamity in his soul as the foundation of his life cracked and threatened to break and leave him suspended in a bleak void.</p><p>At the end of his prayer, Jibril didn’t come to illuminate Yusuf with any answer – not that Yusuf had expected it. He rubbed his face tiredly. His body felt heavy yet numb as he stood up and rolled up his prayer mat. For a moment, he contemplated never picking up the mat again, leaving behind what had led and regulated his life for three long decades. However, Yusuf knew that came noonday, he would look for it and face the <em>qibla</em> once again because there was still faith amid his uncertainty that, no matter how lost he was, no matter how he had broken so many rules, no matter how everything turned out to be nothing as he expected, no matter how his prayers were never directly answered, he was still heard, he was still cared for, he was still loved, he would be all right, and for as long as this kernel of faith remained, he would always long and search for its comfort in his daily prayers, hands and face upturned in hopefulness for the grace of the Beloved. Yusuf put the prayer mat away along with the few things he called his own, to be carried close to him when the time came for him and Nicolo to move again to the safe haven he kept praying for but might never find.</p><p>Sighing, Yusuf turned and started when he saw Nicolo sitting on the bed, watching him. This wasn’t the first time Yusuf finished his morning prayer and found Nicolo had also just finished his, but this time, Nicolo’s gentle smile when Yusuf turned around with weary face untangled of coarse ropes around Yusuf’s lungs and heart and soul. Yusuf’s trembled as an unseen force drew him through the thick shadows of the breaking dawn to the bed, Nicolo’s eyes in the dark like the moon at night.</p><p>“Go back to sleep,” Nicolo said in his gentle and increasingly familiar speech as Yusuf sat down beside him. When Yusuf said nothing back, Nicolo tried again in accented Arabic, and pushed Yusuf down pointedly, shaking his head when Yusuf feebly protest. “No. Sleep.” He smiled when Yusuf finally complied, pulled the blanket over them, and turned his back to Yusuf in a still-shocking gesture of trust.</p><p>Yusuf stared at the expanse of Nicolo’s back, the long strands of his hair, the gentle rise and fall of his body along with breaths that Yusuf had stopped too many times, the unconditional kindness he gave Yusuf regardless of their lingering differences. At this sight, peace suddenly washed over Yusuf like life giving rain, and like land dried up by draught and the relentless sun, contentment infiltrated his soul, finding little nooks and crannies and filled him until he was lonely no more. This wasn’t quite the answer to Yusuf’s questions and prayers, but it felt like a lifeline, <em>Nicolo </em>felt like a lifeline. He felt like hope. He felt like God’s extended hand, encouraging Yusuf to keep going even though the world, life, and death made no sense anymore. If this was punishment, it wasn’t so bad, it was bearable, it was worth the hurt, it could be beautiful, as long as Nicolo was beside him.</p><p>There were more than a few reasons to call his feelings wrong, but Yusuf couldn’t care less. His connection with his past values weakened with each deviation from what should be that he found, while the connection he and Nicolo shared deepened with every second, its significance growing and turning warm. They were practically strangers and very recently enemies, but they had between them familiarity and understanding that transcended language, politics, and religion. Yusuf knew deep down inside, in his heart of heart, in the core of his mind, in the smallest substance of his being, that Nicolo was the half of his soul, the missing slice of his spirit, the accompanying beat of his undying heart. God makes everyone in pair and Yusuf knew without a shred of doubt in both mind and heart that Nicolo was the half made for him. Their repeated revivals might be unnatural, their connection might be deemed wrong by the world, they might not yet know each other as well as they should, but this new connection between them, this love that felt both new and old, Yusuf would cherish and protect and make sure not even death couldn’t rip out.</p><p>Yusuf grasped the faith he still retained with trembling hands. In the silence of dawn, surrounded by the nothingness brought by war and the everything brought by love, he prayed for strength to protect, pleasure to share, devotion to dedicate, love to put beneath Nicolo’s feet. He prayed for an easy life for Nicolo, happiness as much as his immortal heart could take, and peace and contentment in a bloodthirsty world that demanded hatred between them. Yusuf kissed his finger pads and touched them on the nape of Nicolo’s pale neck, sealing his prayers with all the affection his full heart could muster. In front of him, Nicolo startled, surprised by the touch, but immediately relaxed when Yusuf put his hand on his hip to settle him.</p><p>Outside, war was still brewing and fear was still thick in the air. The day had just started and who knew what it and the eternity ahead would bring. There was so much uncertainty even without the core of Yusuf’s existence being shaken and his mind being filled with more questions than he probably should’ve asked. However, Yusuf had Nicolo by his side and his love for Nicolo in his heart. It might not seem to be much – Yusuf wasn’t young enough to believe love was the solution to all problems – but it steadied him, it gave him something else to believe and rely on, it was enough, it was everything Yusuf needed to face the unknown. Body and mind quiet and content at last, Yusuf closed his eyes, loosely slung his arm over Nicolo’s torso, and fell asleep embracing his love in the embrace of the Beloved.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Alternate title: the origin of cuddling. Now for the super long notes:</p><p>Crash course on <a href="https://demonessryu.tumblr.com/post/156694333904/ten-angels-in-islam-al-malaikah">ten angels in Islam/shameless self-promotion</a> (Munkar and Nakir have the same job. I always imagine them playing good cop-bad cop).<br/>Jesus/Isa could <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_Islam#Raising_the_dead">raise the dead</a> in Islam.<br/>I mentioned eternity because at this point they didn’t know they weren’t entirely immortal.<br/>The lack of internalized homophobia isn’t me omitting stuff. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_in_Islam#History_of_homosexuality_in_Islamic_societies">Medieval Islam</a> was actually kind of okay with homosexuality – well, pederasty actually. So, it’s entirely possible that Joe has accepted the fact that he’s into men and has slept with men by then.<br/>Quran says everyone's <a href="https://quran.com/51/49?translations=21,101,18,84,22,19,17,85,95">created in pair</a>.<br/>Some of Yusuf's narrative is inspired by Bishr ibn al-Mu'tamir's description of love.</p><p>There was originally more religious questions/crisis in this but it kind of deviated from the plot so I got rid of it. I don’t know enough to start a discourse anyway.</p><p>I can be found on <a href="http://demonessryu.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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